Chris Columbus, director of the first two original Harry Potter films, is sharing his thoughts about HBO’s new television version of JK Rowling’s magical classic. Columbus also notes rumors of Cillian Murphy being cast as Lord Voldemort.
While attending the Los Angeles premiere of Nosferatu, Columbus told People that the new series represents an opportunity to explore themes he was never able to bring up in his earlier work.
He told the outlet, “I think it’s a great idea because there’s a certain restriction when you’re making a movie. Our movie was two hours and 40 minutes, and the other one was almost that long.”
Reflecting on his experience directing Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and The Chamber of Secrets (2002), Columbus noted the difficulty of compressing Rowling’s longer novels into feature-length films. They adopted the series format, which can delve deeper into the nuances of the books.
The director said that having multiple episodes per book would allow the creators to include plot points and scenes that had to be left out in the films due to time constraints.
“The fact that they have (multiple) episode breaks for each book, I think it’s fantastic. You can get all the stuff in the series, we just didn’t have the opportunity to do all these great scenes that We could do it. Don’t put it in the movies,” Columbus said.
While casting for the HBO series is still underway, fans have already started speculating online. One of the most popular ideas is to cast Cillian Murphy as Lord Voldemort, the iconic villain previously portrayed by Ralph Fiennes. Columbus is a fan of Murphy’s work and supports the idea, calling the actor amazing.
He said, “Well, Cillian is one of my favorite actors, so it would be amazing. Cillian is a fantastic actor. I would be rooting for Cillian.”
The new Harry Potter series is highly anticipated, with fans eagerly awaiting any news coming during filming. All of the original eight films are currently available to stream.
Also read: Director Chris Columbus left the film after actor Chevy Chase treated him like a ‘crook’; Miss ‘bizarre’ meetings
